1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to an overloaded card manager, and, in particular, to a system and method for managing an overloaded card which is an existing card that has its own card service(s) that is overloaded with services for other cards wherein the existing card is the only card that has to be used. Still particularly, the present invention relates to an overloaded card manager that allows efficient management of the overloaded card and the overloaded card services, that allows easy or automatic updating or changing of information relating to the overloaded card and overloaded card services, and that allows easy switching of the overloaded card in being designated as one existing card to another existing card.
2. Description of the Related Art
A person may typically carry a various number of cards, such as credit cards, driver""s license card, membership cards, etc., with him or her. However, the carrying of so many cards may be quite cumbersome and bulky for a person. For example, the large number of cards may cause a person""s wallet to bulge. Also, the tasks of managing and tracking so many cards may become quite a hassle or burden.
Various types of universal cards or smart cards have been developed to integrate convenience and usability of multiple cards of a user into a single card. For these types of universal cards or smart cards, a generic universal card or generic smart card is provided, and the card services from all the different cards that a person owns is associated and programmed to the single universal card or smart card. The single generic card is generally used to integrate card services from various cards, and the card itself has no other functions or inherent operations. Some of these universal cards or smart cards require changing, updating, and/or maintaining of stored data on the cards themselves or may require the informing of the card service providers of the various cards regarding the integration of the cards to the universal card or smart card. Furthermore, some of these universal cards or smart cards require a power source to maintain, store, and/or display the data on the card. U.S. Pat. No. 5,530,232 to Taylor; U.S. Pat. No. 4,700,055 to Kashkashian Jr.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,443,027 to McNeely et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,546,523 to Gatto; U.S. Pat. No. 4,593,936 to Opel; U.S. Pat. No. 5,276,311 to Hennige; U.S. Pat. No. 5,477,040 to Lalonde provide examples of such universal cards or smart cards.
However, the problem with universal cards or smart cards is that they require the providing of the additional generic cards that are not themselves inherently functional or operational cards. For authentication purposes, a vendor or business establishment may not simply accept the universal card or smart card on its face value and may still require seeing and verifying the existence of the actual, real card itself that has been integrated into the universal card or smart card. This requirement defeats one of the main purposes of having a universal card or smart card since the person would still have to carry the cards that were integrated into the single universal card or smart card in the event of an authentication or verification request.
Furthermore, the integration of several cards and their card services into one single card results in a management problem in that the services of all the cards associated to the single card have to be carefully tracked and maintained by the card user. However, such a management task may be extremely cumbersome and tedious. For example, if a card user wishes or needs to change his/her billing address, then the card user has to remember every card with a respective card service that has been associated to the universal single card. The card user then has to contact every respective card service provider for each of the cards associated to the universal single card. Furthermore, if the card user wishes to change using his/her present universal single card to using another universal single card, then the card user has to engage in the tedious tasks of tracking and remembering all of the card information associated with the first universal card, canceling the first universal card and its services, and setting up and programming the second universal card and its respective services with all of the information from the first universal card and any other new information.
It would therefore be advantageous and desirable to provide a card management system for managing services of a universal card. It would also be advantageous and desirable to provide a universal card manager that allows efficient management of the universal card and the universal card services. It would further be advantageous and desirable to provide a universal card manager that allows easy or automatic updating or changing of information relating to the universal card and universal card services. It would still further be advantageous and desirable to provide a universal card that allows easy switching of the universal card in being designated as one existing card to another existing card.
It is therefore one object of the present invention to provide an overloaded card management system for managing services of an overloaded card which is an existing card that has its own card service(s) that is overloaded with services for other cards wherein the existing card is the only card that has to be used.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an overloaded card manager that allows efficient management of the overloaded card and the overloaded card services.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an overloaded card manager that allows easy or automatic updating or changing of information relating to the overloaded card and overloaded card services.
It would still further be advantageous and desirable to provide an overloaded card that allows easy switching of the overloaded card in being designated as one existing card to another existing card.
The foregoing objects are achieved as is now described. An overloaded card management system for managing services of an overloaded card which is an existing card that has its own card service(s) that is overloaded with services for other cards wherein the existing card is the only card that has to be used. The present system and method provide, use, and manage an overloaded card with overloaded card services. An existing card is associated with an associated card service that is used by a card user. The existing card is set up as the overloaded card with the overloaded card services by associating at least one other service of at least one other card to the existing card. The existing card is used as the overloaded card with the overloaded services which include the associated card service and at least one other service. The overloaded card with the overloaded services are managed. Overloaded card management data relating to the overloaded card and the overloaded card services are maintained and stored. A change, if any, made to the overloaded card and the overloaded card services is tracked. The overloaded card management data is updated to reflect the change. Appropriate actions are performed in response to the change.
The above as well as additional objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed written description.